The explicitly solicited take links betrayal, coma and revenge to Kill Bill, while the assassin’s bolo tie and Storm’s ponytail are compared with Vincent Vega; Kill Vern is proposed as a joke title. — Kyle Brandt
Seagal is compared with Billy Corgan: a major creative run whose reputation is eclipsed by a disliked persona, with the Under Siege pair likened to a double album. — Bill Simmons
A spouse’s admission of an early Seagal crush becomes an amused personal revelation, particularly his low voice and ponytail. — Bill Simmons
Joaquin Phoenix, then credited as Leaf, gives a performance that forecasts an Oscar winner, especially when his face breaks while asking his father if he can live with him. — Bill Simmons
One participant did not realize the actor was the boy from Parenthood until after Gladiator, when a sister pointed it out. — Van Lathan
A Kanye West lyric from Gone about a new wife and “now you’re Jennifer Aniston” is said to borrow from the film’s line about a new wife and family. — Van Lathan
Gil’s thumb trick still delights small children. — Bill Simmons
The grandmother inhaling helium is favored, as any helium scene is funny. — Bill Simmons
Per the research, there was a rivalry in which DiCaprio sought the Garry role, Phoenix got it, and the two competed for parts, with Phoenix measuring himself against DiCaprio. — Bill Simmons
Garry’s chaotic room is praised as a horror show compared with a real teenager’s room. — Bill Simmons
The boyfriend character as every parent’s nightmare who turns out decent is a favored concept. — Bill Simmons
The nude-photo discovery reportedly happened to producer Brian Grazer; developing such photos in the 1980s is joked about. — Bill Simmons
The Cure's Boys Don't Cry poster in Julie's room is appreciated. — Bill Simmons
Kevin’s tense face became a recurring reference in an early sports column, seen in a head coach during the Super Bowl and in LeBron James. — Bill Simmons
Harley Jane Kozak, also Helen in When Harry Met Sally, is appreciated as an actor who never quite broke through. — Bill Simmons
The film’s candid treatment of money, including Larry’s debts, Gil’s worries about private school, and summer-school pay funding a vacation, is more relatable than shows where money is no object. — Chris Ryan
The car sex-act gag is raised but deferred to Apex Mountain.
Brought forward from internet research: NBC ordered a Parenthood series from a rough cut, per Bill Carter in The New York Times, and the 1990 show was canceled after twelve episodes. — Bill Simmons
The 1990 series cast David Arquette and a young DiCaprio in the Garry role, part of a late-1980s wave of failed movie-based shows such as Ferris Bueller, Working Girl, Uncle Buck and Dirty Dancing. — Bill Simmons
The later Parenthood series is considered good by those who watched early seasons; Friday Night Lights is an outlier because it reworked the premise. — Bill Simmons
The Ferris Bueller TV show’s joke about a poster of Matthew Broderick playing him is recalled as hacky. — Van Lathan
The adult tape Helen finds was reportedly Blonde Goddess, a 1982 film whose opening parodied Indiana Jones. — Bill Simmons
Dianne Wiest and Mary Steenburgen were reportedly best friends who worked as waitresses together at the Magic Pan before being cast as sisters-in-law; both won Oscars. — Bill Simmons
The film is set in St. Louis but was shot in Florida, with palm trees and a Publix visible. — Chris Ryan
Opening-credits 1970s history lesson; real hockey players in the roles; Bill Ranford in goal; Al Michaels re-recording his call; Michaels' game intro; keeping O.C. on the team; the Russians' style of play; Noah Emmerich; the BUM stuff; "He doesn't know what to do"; Dream On
The opening credits history lesson on the 1970s (Watergate, the gas shortage) is liked, though it asks whether the fall of Saigon relates to a hockey game; the Carter malaise speech is an important piece. — Bill Simmons
Casting hockey players instead of actors, because it is easier to teach hockey players to act, makes you believe you are watching them really do it. — Bill Simmons
Bill Ranford, a longtime goalie who played for the Bruins, is essentially Jim Craig under the equipment, the one organic place to cheat. — Bill Simmons
Realism is not always needed (Teen Wolf, Stallone as an arm wrestler), but it helped here. — Bill Simmons
Having Al Michaels redo his audio so he narrates the third act is an incredible wrinkle; the last seconds use his real, higher-pitched call. — Bill Simmons
Michaels' underrated intro to the game ("two teams on a sheet of frozen ice in Lake Placid") would have signaled history was about to happen. — Chris Ryan
The decision to let O.C. play is both a great scene and a good job by Herb Brooks, since there were only 20 spots and most coaches probably would have cut him. — Bill Simmons
The Russians played like a different sport in their use of space, and Herb wanted a hybrid of Russian and Canadian styles and to go right at them. — Bill Simmons
Noah Emmerich as Craig Patrick is added; this and Beautiful Girls are called his Apex Mountain combo, though for most of the movie he seems like a glorified water guy. — Bill Simmons
The BUM stuff was awesome, and a favorite little moment is late in the third period when Herb Brooks does not know what to do. — Chris Ryan
Dream On in the closing credits is recalled as something that belonged in the aged-best category. — Bill Simmons
The opening, with him on a ledge saying that for a guy with a four-digit IQ he must have missed something, is nominated as a hook that works even though telling viewers where the story ends often fails; it is called good but not the most rewatchable scene.
Vern is loved as a great drug dealer who seduces Eddie and then immediately becomes unavailable. — Chris Ryan
Vernon Gant is identified as Johnny Whitworth, the star of Empire Records.
The dealer explains the drug to Eddie in a grimy, perfect way; Eddie takes it, has sex with the woman down the hall, cleans his room for three days and says he was blind but now he sees.
Asked how close someone would have to be to get them to take NZT, the answer is that it would be taken after side-effect questions if a trusted colleague offered it; one late-night Camel Light while writing once felt like a small NZT kick.
A runner-up choice is the tablet-a-day title line and the montage in which he finishes a book in four days, learns piano, plays blackjack, has sex with models, diagnoses tumors, learns languages and kung fu, holds court with business elites, cliff dives and trades stocks, all in about 10 minutes.
The cliff dive did not look CGI'd, and it is a jackknifed, non-professional dive slamming into the water.
The holding-court scenes are loved, though things-are-going-well sequences are always hard to pull off; a joke imagines Chris holding court about the 2022 World Cup with seven experts.
The short subway fight, with five people wanting to fight him at once, shows Cooper could have had his own Jason Bourne version, but he never made a straight-up action movie and got artsy.
The Bourne Legacy may have misfired choosing Renner over Cooper; the Limitless TV show likewise had the same material without Cooper and did not work.
Abbie Cornish's park chase, where she takes a pill to think her way out of a knife attack, is nominated; the film keeps surprising, as when she slices the bad guy's face with a little girl's ice skate or Eddie drinks the bad guy's blood.
Asked whether he lived in New York, he says Brooklyn rather than Manhattan and jokes that cabs drive through Central Park every day like in Die Hard with a Vengeance. — Chris Ryan
Eddie fighting Russian gangsters and drinking NZT blood is nominated; his vocabulary grows through the film, and the suddenly blinded villain who is still a threat is a favorite trope, as in Halloween and Big Trouble in Little China.
The sterile New York arms-dealer apartment is a real fantasy spot.
One pick is the Cooper-versus-De Niro ending, with 'I see everything, Carl,' the predicted car accident and his diagnosis of Van Loon's heart; it is also De Niro's best scene.
Most action movies end badly, as Taken does with its coda; a 'Bill Simmons cut' ending movies when the villain dies is floated, and this film pulls off not needing another scene, with the lunch ordering scene as dessert.
Another favorite is the come-up after he gets the stash, especially the editor leaving three increasingly excited voicemails about his first pages, which is what a professional writer is after.
A joke recalls Chris leaving Shea three messages about his eighth-grade football team diary.
The pick is the montage where he cures Helen's cancer, learns to play piano and starts day trading. — Chris Ryan
Friday Night Football montage; Joe Hallenbeck's beatings; the title on the football card; the disgraced-hero backstory; bad guys saying a full name derisively; Wayans's hat; the witty exchanges; Halle Berry's brief role; the conspiracy explanation scene
The Friday Night Football montage, with a question about who Bill Medlay is. — Bill Simmons
Joe Hallenbeck is hit in the face seven times, three times in the back of the head, tasered and stabbed; he is compared with Marvin in Midnight Run for most abuse. — Bill Simmons
Nobody is better at getting beaten up in movies than Willis, who lacked the ego seen in the Pacino speech in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. — Chris Ryan
The football card signed to the daughter works the title into the movie about as well as it gets; research traced it to the early-90s Pro Set. — Bill Simmons
The trope of a hero who did the right thing about something terrible, then falls into a much worse job, often a former Secret Service agent, with In the Line of Fire and The Sentinel cited. — Bill Simmons
Private detectives in movies are always drinking alcoholics sitting in cars. — Chris Ryan
Bad guys saying someone's full name derisively, as Taylor Negron does, is a great way to mark a villain. — Bill Simmons
Wayans's fez-style hat with the tassel is cool, also worn by Hallie Berry in Boomerang, and should come back. — Bill Simmons
The exchanges are witty in script form and Willis somehow pulls them off; the movie is tired, drunk, sarcastic and dead inside. — Chris Ryan
Hally Berry brings so much to a small part in only four or five minutes, which makes Boomerang's premise ludicrous. — Chris Ryan
The owner Shelley explaining the conspiracy recalls Donald Sutherland in JFK, and the gambling-and-blackmail conspiracy could still work today. — Chris Ryan
The scene is set at halftime of a Cleveland versus Los Angeles game with Vern Lundquist, Dick Buckkiss and Lynn Swan as sideline reporter, who berates the L.A. owner about ratings, attendance and where all the heroes have gone. — Bill Simmons
The hosts want sideline reporters to ask NBA players like Brandon Ingram and LeBron James where all the heroes have gone. — Chris Ryan
Billy Cole is alleged to take PCP in the locker room, though one host always thought it was cocaine until reading Wikipedia. — Bill Simmons
Early nits: whether he had the gun in his pants the whole quarter, how it did not affect his burst while breaking four tackles, and whether his touchdown would count for gamblers. — Bill Simmons
He says 'Ain't life a bitch' as he shoots himself, and the broadcast presumably cuts to a test signal. — Chris Ryan
Only one spotlight seems to be on in Cleveland Stadium, like a German expressionist film; Tony Scott's football is closer to Zach Snyder's 300 and the rain device returns in The Fan. — Chris Ryan
The scene was a watershed; the movie arguably peaks in the first six minutes, helped by the Bill Medley Friday Night Football song. — Bill Simmons
Other rewatchable scenes offered: Joe finding the guy in the closet, which leads to the first of several car bombs. — Bill Simmons
Jimmy's speech on the NFL stance on drugs and gambling, played back by Craig, reads like Shane Black at 3:30 in the morning.
Joe versus Kim Coats, where Joe warns him not to touch him again and then kills him. — Bill Simmons
The quirky hitmen, like Pablo playing piano and Taylor Negron, feel Tarantino-like before Tarantino made a movie. — Bill Simmons
The stuffed-animal scene with the car chase, despite not knowing how the gun fits in the stuffed animal. — Bill Simmons
The Hollywood Hills car chase with cars going down the hill that lands in the pool. — Bill Simmons
The strip club with Corey and the Corey car-chase murder right after it are offered as another rewatchable scene; the other side left it out because seeing Halle Berry murdered hurts, wishing she had just taken one in the shoulder. — Bill Simmons
Asked for a most rewatchable pick, the answer is the opening scene, watchable a hundred times in a row; it is jokingly why football had to leave L.A. — Bill Simmons
How does the axe-clanging cult recruit; did Cobra invent the nitrous boost; did it invent Hero Ball; did it foreshadow evil LA cops; has any star been shot at more by bad aim; does the Night Slasher have the best horror-villain gimmick
How do you join or grow the axe-clanging serial-killer cult? Two axes and a mean look, like the Fight Club entry requirements. — Bill Simmons
Did the movie invent the nitrous boost later taken by Fast and Furious and video games? The speedometer taps out at 130; one thinks it invented it. — Kyle Brandt
Did it invent Hero Ball? He still needs his partner to hit a couple of shots. — Kyle Brandt
Did it foreshadow the era of evil Los Angeles cops, with a high-ranking cop masterminding a serial-killer cult? It planted the flag early. — Bill Simmons
Has any star been shot at more by bad aim than Sly? Arnold is the rival, but Arnold gets wounded while Stallone is never grazed, making Sly the pound-for-pound champ. — Bill Simmons
Does the Night Slasher have the best horror-villain gimmick? He checks most boxes; the only hole is lacking Buffalo Bill's pathology, but his late monologue is disturbing and he has one-punch power alongside Myers, Jason and James Gum. — Kyle Brandt
Brian Thompson wanted more but Sly would not give him the time of day; Thompson appeared in The Terminator's early scene with Paxton and should have been bigger. — Kyle Brandt
Sly's Apex was already Rocky IV; for Brigitte, Rocky IV is suggested, while an alternative pick is Flavor of Love, when she was a huge reality star for a couple of years. — Bill Simmons
The stocking-mask serial-killer gimmick is definitely at Apex Mountain. — Kyle Brandt
Hospital horror scenes are not; that is Halloween II. — Kyle Brandt
Serial-killer cults are yes, since this is the only one. — Bill Simmons
Awkward shoehorned advertising is probably not; Back to the Future or The Wizard, a 90-minute Nintendo commercial, holds it. — Bill Simmons
John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band is probably no, Eddie and the Cruisers instead. — Bill Simmons
San Remos is yes, since nothing else seems to have happened there; knives are yes. — Bill Simmons
Sly screaming for a doctor is still Rocky IV. — Bill Simmons
Motorcyclists getting shot, and definitely motorcycles getting grenaded, belong at Apex, though the bikes look like they go eight miles an hour. — Bill Simmons
Creepy serial-killer vans stay with Buffalo Bill in Sounds the Lams, as transcribed. — Bill Simmons
The 1950s Mercury Monterey has to be Apex Mountain. — Bill Simmons
For 80s movie violence Rambo II remains the answer, with Commando and Total Recall more violent; the grocery gunman shoots a lot of carts. — Kyle Brandt
Bill Conti's score; the crowd singing the French anthem; the crooked referee; widescreen and HD; Prisoner FC; Pelé's practice scissor kick; POW camps and domesticated British officers; the closing credits; the good Nazi; the announcer; beating Nazis; the soccer; Pelé
The music: Bill Conti is the goat, and this may be the number one sports-movie score, with dire, comeback, celebration and evil themes. — Bill Simmons
The crowd singing what is believed to be the French national anthem before the penalty gives goosebumps; one sings along without knowing the language. — Bill Simmons
The crooked referee is in the bag for the Nazis; the Allies play down a man for about 70 minutes and still tie. — Bill Simmons
Widescreen and HD reinvented the movie; it is a top-five thank-God-for-HD film. — Bill Simmons
The team calls itself Prisoner FC, noticed on about the 57th screening; someone should make the jerseys. — Bill Simmons
Pele's scissor kick on Sly in practice is amazing, and his final goal resembles a Champions League scissor-kick goal against Leverkusen. — Chris Ryan
POW camps are always a killer premise, especially British officers who have domesticated the camp with sweaters, pipes and gardening, like Colonel Waldron. — Chris Ryan
The closing credits listing each player's country helped a pre-internet viewer learn who the players were. — Bill Simmons
The good Nazi who just loves soccer is pulled off, though if so, why not manage the team, resign, or escape with them. — Bill Simmons
Bennett was supposed to be played by Wings Hauser ('Wingshouser' in the transcript), who was fired on the first day and replaced by Vernon Wells. — Bill Simmons
For Rob Lowe, this movie is rejected because of the 1980s hair; older appearances in The West Wing or Parks and Recreation are preferred. — Bill Simmons
For Demi Moore, G.I. Jane, The Substance, and Indecent Proposal are proposed. — Mallory Rubin
Indecent Proposal receives the strongest support. — Bill Simmons
The flex selection praises the dinner scene’s real romantic chemistry and imagines Reitman being delighted by unexpectedly strong acting. — Kyle Brandt
The selection receives agreement and a proud reaction. — Kyle Brandt
The clean air protest question about which one drew the cock and balls is chosen as best quote, with jokes about saying it in the Ringer bullpen. — Chris Ryan
An additional craziest-quote flex selects Time to meet God, with Just lay back and let it happen, baby as another candidate. A pre-recording joke about the first line is recalled.
A flex quote nomination singles out the exchange about the mother’s friend cheering Rick up after his father died, followed immediately by a change of subject. — Bill Simmons
The best-quote flex is recalled as the exchange about sex with the mother’s friend. — Bill Simmons
